“Gentleman, this is a football”
It is said that the legendary American football coach Vince Lombardi started every new season with the same standard speech to veterans and rookies alike.
He started by introducing the ball. “Gentleman, this is a football”. Then he will talk about the shape a size of the ball and followed by many different ways that ball can be used. I,e passing, kicking etc… This will be followed by a talk on the football field. “Gentleman this is a football field”. Followed by the measurement of the field and the rules of the game and so on.
He does this repeatedly year after year even after Green Bay Packers became NFL champions and Super Bowl winners.
With hindsight, it seems blindingly obvious. He took a failing team full of pro footballers, got them to not only focus on the fundamentals but also immerse them in the basics. They became better than anyone in executing the fundamentals.
Do you know the fundamentals in marketing your business?
There are a myriad of definitions of marketing. For me it is as simple as ‘the process of creating and attracting a customer’.
Building a solid foundation should be your primary focus
Cornerstone revolves around a “Consistent compelling Marketing Message” that clearly states who you work with, what problems you solve, what solutions you provide, what benefits you offer, what results you produce, what guarantee you give and what is unique and special about your particular service. This is the foundation that you build the rest of marketing upon.
If you have not articulated every single part of this with clarity and in writing then everything else, you consider marketing is just hot air.
Why only few businesses focus on fundamentals
Most business owners don’t know what they don’t know. In addition, they are not marketing experts. Building your fundamentals involves a lot of, time-consuming hard work. They would rather embark on direct selling than build a customer attraction process. Many business owners don’t look at marketing from an attraction point of view. They see marketing as an expensive process and have no patience to focus on the basics of marketing. Marketing is not an event. In the ‘process of creating and attracting a customer’, marketing becomes communication of who you are.
We take the path of least resistance
Instead of focusing and building on the fundamentals, we get trapped and focus on social media vehicles. They simply offer a path of least resistance and make us feel better about doing pretend marketing.
Big Hat No Cattle
A colleague of mine from Texas uses the phrase ‘Big Hat no cattle’ to explain things that promise to deliver a lot but cannot deliver. Plenty of noise but no movement. Going out to market your business without getting to grips with your fundamentals is one of the ‘big hat no cattle’ situations. If you visit any business-networking event, you can spot serial networkers who are busy distributing their business cards and collecting other people’s cards. They are certainly wearing big hats’.
Ask yourself – ‘How do I generate highly qualified leads?’
There is no way you can consistently generate highly qualified leads without focusing on your fundamentals. By focusing on the fundamentals, we align with our highly qualified potential lead and can zoom in our communication efforts to earn them as leads.
To start with, focus on the following fundamentals:
- Clearly define whom you want to work with. Who exactly are your targeted potential clients? Where are they; what industry; what size; what needs; what past experience with your kind of service and what buying process? How would you describe your ideal client (using adjectives?)
- What results can your clients expect because of working with you? Describe in detail the advantages, improvements or enhancements do your clients can expect when they engage with your business.
- What differentiates you from your competitors? Do not use vague terms such as ‘quality’ to differentiate your business from competitors. Be very specific in describing why you are different from your competition in a way that adds value to your customers business or life.
- What do you want to be known for? What you are known for will become your identity. By being known for one thing you walk away from being everything to everybody and attract prospects that are aligned with your identity.
Become an expert on your fundamentals
Don’t intellectualize the fundamentals. They need to be clearly articulated in writing and internalized. Everything you do must be based on your fundamentals. Your website and all your marketing communications must reflect this.
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